Chapter Text
Scaramouche crashes through the cockpit in a paroxysm of panicked desperation. The ports on his back sear in agony as his strings pull taut, but still he strains forward, hand outstretched.
"Anything but the Gnosis...!"
Buer pauses. "Anything?"
Is she... actually giving him a chance?
The Gnosis stops moving toward her. It floats in open space, spinning lazily, unclaimed. Scaramouche nods fervently. "Anything," he insists.
Distantly he is aware of how pathetic he sounds, groveling before another god, but his pride has shattered in the face of his defeat. His last, great effort has failed; his one chance at snatching his destiny from the heavens is gone; he will say anything, do anything, be anything to escape the pain of his heart being torn away from him again.
The Gnosis drifts closer to her as she examines it with a detached gaze, and he cannot help the whining keen that escapes him. It is as much from the sight as it is from the lines of liquid fire beginning to shoot out from the ports as they pull at his nerves.
"And if I asked you to betray the Fatui?"
"Of course-!" he bursts. He was only ever using the Fatui. And they were only ever using him, so it was all fair, wasn't it?
She frowns, a little. "And if I asked you to swear loyalty to me?"
Archons, all of them, all the same. He should have been one of them. He should have been able to claw his way to a throne. But he has fought this battle, one hundred-sixty eight times, and he is so, so tired. "Yes," he wheezes. He is panting now, through the pain. He can feel the torturous snap of each wire linked into his back, giving out one-by-one. His hand trembles, still reaching out for his heart.
Buer tilts her head, eyes luminous, unfeeling. Fathomless.
(So much like hers)
"If I asked you to be my... puppet?"
Indignation roars through him, then smothers itself before it can explode. Buer is merely calling a spade a spade. He should have known that the turmoil and agony he is feeling would be the only result of trying to rise above his place. For all his raging against the world, for all his lofty words and patience and planning, for all his raving and rattling the bars, he should have known he would live and die as a tool. He has been the possession of two Archons now. First his mother, who decided he was not even good enough for that, and tossed him aside. Then the Tsaritsa, who for all her airs saw him as little more than a pawn. And now he has betrayed her, and then failed her, and even if he crawled his way back to her, she would give him no quarter.
There are worse things than living out his original purpose: housing a Gnosis, subservient to a god. Passing his strings to Buer, at least he would not be nothing.
So even as the thorns of hatred rise up and choke him, even as he curses the gods for all seeing him as nothing more than an object to use -
"Y..yes," he gags out.
There is a flicker in the young god's expression, a crack in her divine serenity that he sees for only an instant before -
- the wires fray and snap. Still reaching out to the archon, he plummets from the vanquished symbol of his godhood. A shout of terror escapes him. His stomach swoops as the ground rushes closer -
- Something wraps around his wrist and he screeches as his arm is wrenched violently from his socket. But he's no longer falling. The Dendro archon descends to hover in front of him as her vine - the vine that sprouted from concrete and caught him - lowers him slowly to his knees and releases him. Trembling, he clutches at his shoulder with his good hand. His limbs are weak and uncoordinated from being hooked into the machine. The violet lifeblood of Shouki no Kami gushes from the tubes on his back, and he feels light-headed. Ever so softly, Buer's bare-soled feet alight on the ground again. She is shorter than him, even as he's kneeling. She stands before him with the Gnosis in one hand and his life in the other, and her gaze is fey and far-sighted.
She caught him - that must mean something. It has to mean she's at least considering.
"For you," he beseeches. "I'll use it only for you."
(Some dim, distant part of him is disgusted at how quickly he regresses, becomes nothing more than a lost child, desperate for approval.)
She reaches out and he flinches, but she only puts a small, soft palm on his cheek. A shiver runs through him, to be touched so gently, when everything hurts. He closes his eyes, leans into it. (Like this, he can almost believe she's someone else)
Then she speaks, and her voice is as soft as the rest of her. "But," Buer says. Her thumb caresses his cheek. "How can I possibly trust you?"
His eyes spring open. She is dispassionate as she continues, "You tried to kill me one hundred sixty-eight times. Not only me, my friends. The Traveler."
"I - " he tries, rasping through a suddenly dry throat, "I'm sorry," but she shakes her head.
"You don't regret it; you would try again if you thought you had any chance of succeeding. How could I take you by your word?"
She begins to pull away and he lurches forward, catching her at the wrist and folding his hand over hers to keep it pressed to his cheek. Panic buzzes through him, but he knows what to say, how to bargain. "You, you don't have to," he starts in a rush. "Install a failsafe. Dottore thinks I don't know about his, but I do. He put it in to incapacitate me, if I ever betrayed him. You have - architects, engineers. You could replace it with your own. All you'd have to do is keep me," he pretends his voice doesn't waver pathetically on the word, "by your side. You wouldn't have to trust a word I say."
He looks up at her and feels something in him shrivel at her expression. Her delicate features have twisted, a shadow in her luminous gaze. He doesn't know what it means exactly, except for rejection. She tugs her hand away from him again and he lets her this time, though he feels its absence as a wound. She folds it against her chest like an injured bird, as if she's sullied herself just by touching him.
What more? What more could he possibly give? Or has she only been toying with him from the start? Does it amuse her to humiliate him? To see him writhe in his desperation? If the Tsaritsa found a use for him, why can't she? And if she doesn't intend to give him a chance, why hasn't she killed him yet?
"I could seal you away with it," she muses, almost to herself. "Far away from anyone you could harm. Permanently."
His eyes sting. He can't cry - not now, not in front of her. He can't show how weak and pathetic he truly is. But as ever, he cannot escape his first sin, the first and earliest proof of his worthlessness - the only one his mother had needed to throw him away. The tears sear his cheeks as they slip down and escape.
Suddenly, the anger that vanished earlier flares in his chest again. She must know that's the only fate he could never abide. To end right where he began, a discarded doll set on a shelf, locked in a domain where no one could ever set eyes on him again - not with reverence nor affection nor hatred nor fear nor disgust. Anything was better than nothing. After all, isn't that what all of this had been for?
(Look at me. Look at me.
See me.
Don't leave me.)
"Kill me then!" he snarls. "End this - this farce. If you won't bargain for it, if I can't offer you anything, just kill me!" He sends her his best, most poisonous glare through the tears coursing down his cheeks.
"I won't," she whispers, so softly. As if she thinks it's a mercy.
"Why not?" he bursts. "I tried to kill you one hundred sixty-eight times!" He parrots her words back to her. "Kill me! I won't stop you. It's easy! I can't - I can't - " His chest heaves. He doubles over, clawing at the empty place where his heart would be. "I can't live without it again!"
"You can," she says. "You will."
It's like she can't even hear him. "Take anything," he sobs. Begs. "Take my eyes, my arms, my legs. Just don't take my heart away from me!"
Silence.
"I'm sorry," she says. And the worst thing is, she sounds truly sincere.
She's walking away. She's leaving him all alone again. Her long hair sways in its braid. He chokes, blinded by tears. He reaches out, babbles insensately. "No! Give me one more chance. What did I do wrong? Tell me! Mother, please!"
Only stillness. Only silence.
His strings cut, Kunikuzushi cannot follow. For him, only nothingness awaits.